Comprehensive youth programs provide tools and a caring environment that help youth in developing countries escape poverty.
Poverty is a hard trap to escape when it is all you know.
Job training can open a door out of poverty.

More than one-third of the world’s population, nearly 2.5 billion people, live on less than US $2 a day according to The World Bank. Employment can be life-changing for these people, but poverty is a hard trap to escape when it is all you know. Children International’s comprehensive youth programs provide young people with thoughtfully designed tools and experiences that can open doors to a life beyond poverty.

“The approach we took,” explains Gordon Bailey, the chair of Into Employment and a member of both Children International’s Advisory Council and Board of Directors, “was to meet with employers in communities and say, ‘If we’ll train specifically to what you need, will you give our kids a chance?’ And we have never met with anything but a positive reaction to that.” During training, youth are matched with participating employers so they can gain work experience and start earning a living wage.

The Youth Report explains that in 2011, 97 percent of the participants in Children International’s Into Employment program completed training, and 64 percent of all trainees found employment within three months of completing the program. The highest placement rate was in Bicol, Philippines, where by the end of training, nearly 90 percent of trainees were employed.

Children International serves more than 340,000 children around the world, including more than 158,000 youth ages 12-19, and this is just one of the measurable results impacting participants in the organization’s youth programs, which include:

Children International provides not only targeted youth programs, and a safe and encouraging place for youth to gather, but an entire community of support. That community is larger than the people the children see surrounding them as employees and volunteers. It also includes the generous donors who recognized the significance of making comprehensive programs a reality. The astute vision of Children International’s Advisory Council combined with donations of over $10 million over the past 5 years have made this significant, measurable change possible.

One donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, has promised an additional $3 million over the next two years – beyond their initial donation – after seeing the success of the programs and personally visiting with the youth. That donation alone will make it possible for at least 42,000 more youth to participate.

Mr. Dick Roberts, who coordinated afterschool programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District from 1998-2007 and is a member of the Children International Advisory Council, notes, “Children International provides solid youth programs in an environment that supports and guides youth initiative and teamwork. That combination helps build the resilience that youth need to escape the poverty of their surroundings.”

President and CEO of Children International Jim Cook said, “Children International is proud of the results we are seeing from our youth programs, and is grateful to have such dedicated and engaged supporters and contributors who are making a world of change possible.”